In various medical procedures or treatments, tubes are used to provide patients with medicine, nutrition, or other fluids as part of their treatment. Such tubes are used to connect the patient to a fluid supply. For example, tubes are employed in feeding systems which provide nutritional fluids to patients who either require additional supplements to meet dietary needs or who are unable to eat orally. Feedset couplings are used in medical feeding systems for connecting the tubes between a feeding supply source and a patient. Typically the couplings only include a male adapter that mates with a female adapter. When a coupling becomes disconnected (such as when incidental tension is applied to some part of the feeding system), the contents of the supply source can continue flowing uninterrupted out of the tube via the disconnected coupling. Additionally, contents from the patient's gastrointestinal tract may also backflow uninterrupted out of the tube from the patient. A number of problems result from such uninterrupted and unconnected flow including loss of feeding, loss of medication, loss of time in supplying a patient with the necessary nutrition, compromised patient health, clean up, poor sleeping due to wetness and hunger, and potentially patient aspiration on the spilled tube feeding.
Some feeding supply systems include alarms that signal when the supply fluid is “free flowing.” However, these alarm systems only work if a supply pump becomes disconnected, not if a feedset coupling becomes disconnected. Accordingly, some manufacturers have tried to prevent the feedset coupling from becoming disconnected. However, these devices can cause the feeding tube to be dislodged from the patient entirely, leading to similar and additional problems.